xperience does nat make one an expert, and perhaps even by explaining what it means to place someone in the role of "na-tive informant." It must be stated that professors cannot inter-vene if they also see students as "native informants." Often, students have corne to my office complaining about the Jack of inclusion in another professor' s class. For example, a course on social and political thought in the United States includes no work by women. When students complain to the teacher about this Jack of inclusion, they are told to make suggestions of material that can be used. This often places an unfair burden on a student. It also makes it seem that it is only important to address a bias if there is someone complaining. Increasingly, students are making complaints because they want a democrat-ic unbiased liberal arts education. Multiculturalism compels educators to recognize the nar-row boundaries that have shaped the way knowledge is shared in the classroom. It forces us all to recognize our complicity in accepting and perpetuating biases of any kind. Students are eager to break through barriers to knowing. They are willing to surrender to the wonder of re-learning and learning ways of knowing that go against the grain. When we, as educators, allow our pedagogy to be radically changed by our recognition of a multicultural world, we can give students the education they desire and deserve. We can teach in ways that transform consciousness, creating a climate of free expression that is the essence of a truly liberatory liberal arts education. 4 Paulo Freire This is a playful dialogue with myself, Gloria Watkins, talking with bell hooks, my writing voice. I wanted to speak about Paulo and his work in this way for it afforded me an intimacy-a familiarity-I do nat find it possible to achieve in the essay. And here I have found a way to share the sweetness, the soli-darity I talk a bo ut. Watkins: Reading your books Ain 't I a Woman: Black Women a nd Feminism, Feminist The!Yfy: From Margin to Center, and Talk-ing Bach, it is clear that your development as a critica! thinker has been greatly influenced by the work of Paulo Freire. Can you speak abou~ why his work has touched your life so deeply? hooks: Years before I met Paulo Freire, I had learned so much from hi s work, learned new ways o f thinking a bo ut social reality that were liberatory. Often when university stu-45

States to conceptualize how the classroom willlook when they are confronted with the demographics which indicate that ''whiteness" may cease to be the norm ethnicity in classroom settings on all levels. Hence, educators are poorly prepared when we actually confront diversity. This is why so many of us stubbornly ding to oid patterns. As I worked to create teacbing strategies tbat would make a space for multiculturallearning, I found it necessary to recognize wbat I have called in other writ-ing on pedagogy different "cultu

Some express the feeling that they are less likely to suffer any kind of assault if they simply do not assert their subjectivity. They bave told me that many professors never showed any interest in hearing their voices. Accepting the decentering of the West globally, embracing multiculturalism, com pels educators to focus attention on the issue of voice. Who speaks? Who listens? And why? Caring about whether all students fulfill their responsibility to con tribute to learning in the classroom is not a common approach in what Freire has called the "banking system of education

, particularly in education, there is not nearly enough practica! discussion of ways classroom settings can be trans-formed so that the learning experience is inclusive. If the effort to respect and honor the social reality and experiences of groups in this society who are nonwhite is to be reflected in a pedagogical process, then as teachers-on all levels, from ele-mentary to university settings-we must acknowledge that our styles of teaching may need to change. Let's face it: most of us were taught in classrooms where styles of teachings reflected the hotion of a single norm of thought and experience, which we were encouraged to believe was universal. This has been just as true for nonwhite teachers as for white teachers. Most of us learned to teach emulating this model. As a çonsequence, many teachers are disturbed by the political implications of a multicultural education because they fear losing control in a 35

ns, or attorneys, or engineers in our family because we were deliberately kept out of those spaces. There was no legacy. No one to open the door, leave it cracked, and let us in. I looked around, and people were dying laughing. I was dying. I cried. At long last, even after first-generation and poor students like me sur-mount class-based difficulties in college, the debt looms for decades. Although a college education is "the most reliable step" for upward social mobility, the debt that poor college students incur and retain for years keeps them at a handsome distance below their more well-off contemporaries in building net worth and wealth (Gollnick & Chinn, 2009). Therefore, matriculating and even graduating from college does not remedy wealth gaps in as "clean" a manner as we might hope. Moreover, the cultural capital that one brings to the collegiate table and then builds while there is often more valuable than the degree itself. The Posse Foundation, which sends traditionally underadmitted students to college in teams, has found a way to combat at least the social isolation and class-based hostilities that poor students often face, as well as to preserve the community cultural capital of the underrepresented group itself. In this way, groups or "posses" of students who tend not to fare well in college can surround themselves with familiarity, solidarity, and the poten-tial to build connections together. They may not have as many nepotistic or wealth-based connections as their peers, but at least they have their posse (Rosenberg, 2012). Insisting on Class Equity: What's Really at Stake When my students and I conclude our discussions about the ways in which schools structure, not ameliorate, inequality, I am faced with questions about what to do and why we should do anything at all. Public education is the largeSr mechanism for socialization in any society (Spring, 2008). It is also the b~d-rock of a participatory democracy where citizens can pursue self-actualizati?n without hindrance and with full right. II we truly believe that "the potential for brilliance is sprinkled evenly across all ethnic groups" and all social classes, ◄

Mitt Romney issued a word of advice for young people about what it might take to be successful and wealthy. To contextualize his contribu-tion, he first offered the example of Jimmy John Liautaud, who borrowed a whopping $20,000 from his parents to begin his sandwich franchise, Jimmy John's. Romney then told students at Otterbein University that such opportuni-ties were afforded to them too. He encouraged-admonished-them: "Take a shot. Go for it. Take a risk. Get the education. Borrow money if you have to from your parents. Start a business." Just like that. By the time students-especially poor students-enter high school, one of the most crucial forms of cultural capital

When I begin discussions about poverty and achievement in public schools, my students often ask, "Why do poor students perform poorly?" The question is not about poor students and why they underperform in a system purportedly designed to elevate their opportunities and outcomes. The question is, "Why are people poor?" I insist that we begin with the lowest "rung" on the diagram because there we unpack the existence of a class of "poor people" who seem not to be living up to their potential in a presumably benevolent public education system that was designed-at least in the spirit of Horace Mann-specifically with them in mind. Any serious discussion about the inception of poverty in this country m~st begin by recognizing that class is highly racialized (even globally), and vice versa. The origins of poverty among people of color-specifically descendants of African slaves-are rooted in several centuries of colorized, chattel_ 5l~ve~ with no economic reparation after its formal or informal "end." The maiontyl r poor people in the United States are White, but the majority of people of co 0 ------~•

My new tradition is to begin each foundational course in my program by con-textualizing and historicizing public education. To assist me, I use the diagram shown in Figure 16.1. The topics I address and the stories I tell within each rung of the ladder of structured inequality are candid, personal, and decidedly pointed in order to stimulate discussion

c control. They see these devices in part as ways to ensure that schools can accommodate distinctive community desires, and to give parents a greater say about what goes on in them. Despite the fact that participation in school elections is very low and information on which to base a vote is often scarce, Americans will not surrender local control without a fight. They simply will not permit distant politicians or experts in a centralized civil service to make educational decisions. The reasons for this preference are complicated, in-cluding the incredible diversity of the population and the huge size of the coun-try. Not least important, however, is the fact that local districts mirror and reinforce separation by class and race. Democratic control, therefore, not only provides support for public education but also creates a forum for the occa-sional exercise of bigotry and xenophobia; localism not only accommodates community idiosyncrasies but also serves as a barrier to changes in the distri-bution of students and resources.

Americans want neighborhood schools, decentralized decision making, and democratic control. They see these devices in part as ways to ensure that schools can accommodate distinctive community desires, and to give parents a greater say about what goes on in them. Despite the fact that participation in school elections is very low and information on which to base a vote is often scarce, Americans will not surrender local control without a fight. They simply will not permit distant politicians or experts in a centralized civil service to make educational decisions. The reasons for this preference are complicated, in-cluding the incredible diversity of the population and the huge size of the coun-try. Not least important, however, is the fact that local districts mirror and reinforce separation by class and race. Democratic control, therefore, not only provides support for public education but also creates a forum for the occa-sional exercise of bigotry and

An honest attempt to secure a good education for poor children therefore leaves policymakers with two difficult choices. They can send them to schools with wealthier children, or they can, as a reasonable second best, seek to give them an education in their own neighborhood that has the features of school-ing for well-off students. The former has proved so far to be too expensive po-litically, and the latter has often been too expensive financially. Americans want all children to have a real chance to learn, and they want all schools to foster democracy and promote the common good, but they do not want those things enough to make them actually happen.

This irrationality is most apparent when it comes to reforms that could have the greatest impact and that have the soundest research support. Where it has been tried, educating poor children with students who are more privi-leged, or educating them like students who are more privileged, has improved their performance and long-term chance of success. Quality preschool, indi-vidual reading instruction, small classes in the early grades, and consistently challenging academic courses have been demonstrated to help disadvantaged children achieve, just as they enable middle-class children to achieve. Similarly, it helps all children to have peers who take· school seriously, behave in ways that help them learn, and are backed by parents who have the resources to en-sure that schools satisfactorily educate their children. Most importantly, qual-ified, knowledgea

Yet this progress has met limits. Hispanics and inner city residents still drop out much more frequently than others, the gap between black and white achievement rose during the 1990s after declining in the previous decade, the achievement gap between students from lower-and higher-class families has barely budged, and poor students in poor urban schools have dramatically lower rates of literacy and arithmetic or scientific competence. Most importantly, life chances depend increasingly on attaining higher education, but class back-ground is as imp

Introduction 3 arises between their belief that every child deserves a quality education and their actions to benefit their own children over the long run. Because most Americans now believe that the American dream should be available to all American citizens, public schools in the United States have made real progress toward enabling everyone to pursue success as they understand it. Compared with a few decades ago, dropout rates have fallen, achievement scores have risen, resources are more equally distributed, children with dis-abilities have the right to an appropriate education, and black children are not required by law to attend separate and patently inferior schools. Yet this progress has met limits. Hispanics and inner city residents still drop out much more frequently than others, the gap between black and white achievement rose during the 1990s after declining in the previous decade, the achievement gap between students from lower-and higher-class families has barely budged, and poor students in poor urban schools have dramatically lower rates of literacy and arithmetic or scientific competence. Most importantly, life chances depend increasingly on attaining higher education, but class back-ground is as important as ever in determining who attends and finishes a four-year college.

hieve them. It holds out a vision of both individual success and the col-lective good of all. From the perspective of the individual, the ideology is as compelling as it is simple. "I am an American, so I have the freedom and opportunity to make whatever I want of my life. I can succeed by working hard and using my tal-ents; if I fail, it will be my own fault. Success is honorable, and failure is not. In order to make sure that my children and grandchildren have the same free-dom and opportunities that I do, I have a responsibility to be a good citizen-to respect those whose vision of success is different from my own, to help make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, to participate in the dem-ocratic process, and to teach my children to be proud of this country." Not all residents of the United States believe all of those things, of course, and some believe none of them. Nevertheless, this American dream is surpris-ingly close to what most Americans have believed through most of recent Amer-ican history. Public schools are where it is all supposed to start-they are the central institutions for bringing both parts of the dream into practice. Americans ex-pect schools not only to help students reach their potential as individuals but